I worry about launching in big waves, Roger worries about landing in them, the lifeguards worry about having to rescue us. As we drove down to Goat Rock Beach for the last of our Tuesday night paddles, we passed two lifeguards in white 4x4 trucks with big surf boards on top. They followed us down and parked behind us. I made eye contact with one of them and he shook his head "NO" at me. These guys didn't want us to go out in the ocean on their watch. We had talked to a very friendly lifeguard a few weeks ago, but this time we were being confronted by two different ones. The whole Sonoma County coastline never used to have one lifeguard, but now we had to deal with two of them!
The swell had been calm earlier in the day but large waves were preceding a storm that was supposed to arrive in the night. We would be launching into eight foot waves and possibly landing in larger ones only a few hours later. The lifeguards looked at the waves and conceded that we could probably punch our way out in the current conditions. "And surf back in!" I added. They asked questions about our boats, and were reassured that we had float bags to keep the boats awash even when full of water. Roger assured them that he had not needed to do a wet exit from his boat in years, so the float bags were a remote backup. We told them that we would be landing by 6:30 PM and they threatened to call the Coast Guard if we were not back on time.
Roger took his boat down first and then came back up to get dressed. I got dressed and carried my boat down in one trip as Roger made his second. I was worried that I was a little late, so I went straight down to the shore and got in my boat. It looked like a calm window so I launched and easily made it out to sea. Larger sets came in and convinced me to move farther and farther out. Roger took longer than I expected to get the last of his gear on so I spent some time watching the waves.
Large waves would come around Goat Rock and look like they were thinking of breaking, but usually they only broke close to the rock. One especially large wave came around and just kept getting steeper. I started paddling towards it, then started paddling harder. The wave rose up and I felt as if I was climbing up a vertical wall! The top of the wave broke and fell down on my face as I punched through it. This blinded me for a few seconds, and for an incredibly long time I was weightless! Finally my boat crashed down on the back side of the wave which must have been as steep as the front. The boat fell over on the left side and when I started to brace into it my sore left arm flared up. I let the boat fall over and rolled back up which is much easier on the arms. I had been thinking of practicing a few rolls to thrill the watching lifeguards, so I already had my nose plugs on. Roger was paddling out into these large waves, but they broke so far out that they lost a lot of energy and he had no problem paddling over them. Then a calm window in the waves allowed him to paddle the rest of the way out to sea without getting his face wet!
We turned north and headed past Jenner Beach. We stayed far from shore until Roger complained about it and then we turned behind a few rocks. I went way in behind one shallow reef where I had seen the waves calm down in deeper water. When I got to the "calm" place I found the water there to be incredibly choppy. In general we had a pretty rough ride and didn't get to do much rock gardening. A dark band appeared on the horizon and looked like a fog bank heading our way. It turned out to be low clouds that sailed over our heads and didn't mess up our visibility. However, we turned back early so we would have good visibility for the landing.
Again I chided Roger for almost running into me several weeks ago on the landing, and this time he offered to let me go in first. I saw what looked like a reasonably calm set and started in. A larger wave rose up as I was approaching the first set of shallow rocks. I paddled fast enough to let this wave start me surfing. I went left of the rocks, worrying that they might make the wave too steep to ride. Then I stayed right of the next set of shallow rocks. The wave rose up into an enormous one that rocketed me towards shore! My boat was going so fast it planed over the surface of the water. This makes a BANG BANG BANGITY BANG noise as the fiberglass bottom of the boat slaps the tops of the ripples on the face of the wave! As the wave got ready to break near shore it slowed down and the boat shot out in front. I was hoping that this would shove me far enough to miss the wave breaking behind me. But a glance back showed the wave rising up above me. I let the boat turn right so I could brace but then the wave fell down on top of me.
I tucked forward onto the boat and held the paddle against the right side. The water tugged and pulled at the paddle but never got strong enough that I feared I might loose it. I felt the bow and then the stern, and perhaps the paddle, tap the sandy bottom once or twice each. Then things calmed down a little and my head actually came out of the water for a second. I was side surfing upside down with the boat leaning towards shore. I ducked back under the boat to set up to roll on the other side and as I did this my helmeted head bumped the sandy bottom gently. I rolled back up and found myself quite close to shore inside the soup zone. I looked back out to sea and saw several sets of breakers coming in. For a few seconds I considered going back out and surfing some of these in an upright position. But I figured Roger would be coming in soon and I didn't want to get in his way. So I landed and got out of my boat. Roger waited out the set of big waves and came in without getting a surf ride or even getting wet.
After today these Tuesday night paddles were over for the year. Not because the weather was getting too cold or too rough but because of the end of Daylight Savings Time. By next week it will be Daylight Wastings Time, as I like to call it, and it will be too dark to go paddling when Roger gets off work.